On The Correlation Between L1 Thinking And L2 Speaking Ability For Senior High School Students

With China's entry to the WTO,the widening open-up to the outside world and the social development,spoken-English has become increasingly important,however the students' spoken-English ability is at present rather low,not quite up to the expectation.In the area of the second language acquisition,the influence of L1 is a profound research subject.As far as the existing literature is concerned,the majority of the researches are in the analysis of L1 effect on the writing and reading.However,the researches about the effect of L1 on L2 speaking, especially for the senior students,are rare.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct the research in this area.First of all,the article reviewed the theory of both L2 leaming and L1 thinking,their correlation researches as well as L1 transfer theory in the second language acquisition.Secondly, the article discusses the participation of L1 thinking in L2 speaking and the actual relationship between L1 thinking and L2 speaking ability through a "think-aloud" experiment describing that the senior students use both L1 thinking and L2 thinking in speaking English process.The author chose 30 students in two classes where the author works in the Middle School Affiliated to Minjiang Normal University to take a part in "think-aloud" experiment.The subjects were required to receive "think-aloud" training followed by an oral test.The author recorded the whole test and had the content counted up.Two English teachers were invited to score the speaking.Eventually,the author input the data into the computer and had it analyzed through SPSS 15.0.It turned out that the average of L1 thinking the senior high school students used in L2 speaking is 58.83%.L1 thinking and L2 speaking ability,as well as L1 thinking and L2 proficiency,is proved of negative correlation.